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Singing for Life, BBC Four/ Gazza's Tears, ITV1Monday, 05 July 2010
I once sat in a rehearsal room in a brick-box theatre on the outskirts of Cape Town. The cast was warming up for Carmen. First, the choreographer put 40 mostly black South African singers through a gruelling physical warm-up. Opera singers are rarely slender, and they were all in a muck sweat by the time the vocal coach stepped forward to lead them through a vocal warm-up. But when they opened their mouths it was as if someone has strapped you to a chair in a wind tunnel. The... Read more... |
Forever Young, BBC FourFriday, 02 July 2010
Appropriately enough, Forever Young began with the primal beat of Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life". What I consider to be Mr Pop’s “My Way” seems to perfectly sum up the pumped-up and apparently unstoppable forward momentum of the man himself and his against-all-the-odds lengthy career. But it could just as easily represent many of the world-weary yet resilient musicians interviewed in this unexceptional but nevertheless diverting documentary. |
Southland, More4Thursday, 01 July 2010
The world isn’t exactly sending up distress flares urgently demanding more cop shows, but this new effort from ER’s producer John Wells proves that the genre can still be cranked into life if the writing is strong and the performances feel authentic. Catching the precise tone is always critical, and evidently some pushing and shoving went on about exactly where Southland should be pitched. Read more... |
Reunited, BBC OneWednesday, 30 June 2010
It occurred to me halfway through Reunited that you could map the characters of This Life – the epochal house-share drama of the Nineties – on to those featured in Mike Bullen’s one-hour pilot feature and see little change in the terrain. Read more... |
Bloody Foreigners: The Untold Battle of Britain, Channel 4Tuesday, 29 June 2010
The part played by Polish fighter pilots during the Battle of Britain has hardly gone undocumented, and the Hun-zapping exploits of the Polish 303 Squadron will be familiar to anyone with a historical interest in the subject, so you’d have to say that calling this film The Untold Battle of Britain was a wee bit of an exaggeration. Read more... |
The Untold Battle of Trafalgar, Channel 4Tuesday, 29 June 2010
If you happen to be in Trafalgar Square in London any time soon, you should take a close look at the friezes that adorn the ground portion of Nelson’s Column. For there you will find, most unexpectedly, that one of the sailors depicted is a black man, one of 1,400 non-British seamen among the 18,000 who took part in the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October, 1805. Read more... |
Rev, BBC TwoMonday, 28 June 2010
It doesn’t often happen that a new sitcom is born perfectly formed. The Royle Family, it was instantly clear, would do no wrong. And there was nothing much the matter with those things by Ricky Gervais. (I'd also make a case for The IT Crowd.) But maybe Rev has a harder trick to pull off. Unlike comedies which achieve their effects by formal daring, Rev operates within narrower strictures. It is in all essential respects a deeply traditional sitcom. Read more... |
The IT Crowd, Channel 4Saturday, 26 June 2010
Aeons ago, and in another place, I had a sense-of-humour malfunction. A sitcom about three priests marooned on a remote Irish island took its bow. I didn’t crack a single smile, and said so firmly. Turned out I was in a tiny minority, and just needed time for the flavours of Father Ted to make themselves known. Later, when it came back for a second series, I duly gave myself a very public flagellation. Read more... |
Lennon Naked, BBC FourThursday, 24 June 2010
Films about rock stars usually fail, because it's impossible to recreate whatever larger-than-life qualities made them unique and famous in the first place. You frequently end up with a slightly embarrassing party-piece impersonation that captures some of the mannerisms but misses the essence of the character. Read more... |
Imagine: Art is Child's Play, BBC OneWednesday, 23 June 2010
It took Picasso four years to learn to paint like Raphael, but it took him a lifetime to paint like a child, or so he said. For Brancusi it wasn‘t a case of relearning childhood, but of being careful not to lose it in the first place. “When we are no longer children we are already dead,” he said. Read more... |
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